UF water experts studying plans to move water south from Lake Okeechobee to Everglades

<p>Fallow land and green sugar cane are divided into rectangular fields in the Everglades Agricultural Area, which borders a rim canal and natural marsh land in Lake Okeechobee. Belle Glade and a rainbow can be seen in the distance.</p>

The University of Florida Water Institute is diving right into the deep end of the pool: Plan 6.

The Florida Senate is giving the institute six months and $250,000 to evaluate numerous ways to send Lake Okeechobee water to the Everglades, which — fingers crossed — could decrease or eliminate discharges east to the St. Lucie River and Indian River Lagoon.

The UF team will begin work next week with Plan 6, director Wendy D. Graham said Thursday.

Developed in 1993-94, the plan suggests moving water south by engineering a flow-way through the middle of the Everglades Agricultural Area between the lake and Everglades — home to sugar farms.

“Plan 6 is the only fix” is an often-heard rallying cry among Treasure Coast environmentalists at lagoon-related events. But critics like Malcolm “Bubba” Wade, a U.S. Sugar Corp. executive, don’t think it can be engineered to work.

“I get a lot of emails, and Plan 6 comes up a lot,” Graham said. “We’ll start by looking at the documents that are out there on Plan 6, then we’ll have meetings with experts on the plan to get more information.”

Spring deadline

The institute is supposed to give the Senate its report before the March beginning of the 2015 legislative session.

“There definitely will be a report in February,” Graham said. “Whether it’s what everyone expects, I don’t know.”

The report will include an inventory and assessment of current Everglades restoration plans as well as those proposed by state and federal agencies or stakeholders, to include:

Storing water on public and private land that otherwise would be sent to the estuaries;

Sending excess water to deep underground wells, for recovery later; and

Completing the Central Everglades Planning Project, a kind of mini-Plan 6 that would send some excess lake water south over land already in public hands.

“We don’t have the time or resources to do a comprehensive, exhaustive review of every single plan and proposal,” Graham said. “But it could be that we pick up on the ones that seem most promising.”

No new ground broken

Because of time and money constraints, the team will use only existing information, Graham said.

“We won’t be generating any new data or doing any new modeling or coming up with a totally new plan,” Graham said. “But if a proposal has a document or a presentation or anything we can get our hands on, we can look into it.”

The team won’t develop cost estimates for projects or cost comparisons between projects, “but if figures already exist, we’ll definitely include them,” she said.

During a June 2 lagoon forum at The Stuart News, state Sen. Joe Negron, the Stuart Republican whose special lagoon committee proposed the UF study, said it will “show us the best way for water to flow south. Then we’ll look at how much it costs.”

Graham said she’d like for the study to “uncover some magic silver bullet that will solve all these problems.

But realistically, I hope that we can provide some assurance to the Senate committee that a certain plan is scientifically valid and is a plan that worth pursuing. I can’t say right now what we’ll find. I can only say what our process for looking will be.”

Highlights of the agreement between the Florida Senate and The University of Florida Board of Trustees

Title: Technical Review of Options to Move Water from Lake Okeechobee to the Everglades

Objective: “An interdisciplinary academic review team from the University of Florida Water Institute will review relevant reports and documents and interview scientists and engineers at the lead management agencies. The UF review team also will gather information from other agencies, organizations and other individuals with expertise on issues related to reducing regularity discharges from Lake Okeechobee to the estuaries and increasing the flow of water from the lake to the Everglades.

“The UF review team will develop a report for the Florida Senate that provides a summary and an independent assessment of this regional water management issue.

“(The report) will identify policy and project options for improving water management and note advantages and disadvantages associated with each option.”

Timing: “The review activities will occur in 2014 and early winter 2015, with production of the final report in February 2015.”